Liberian Literary Magazine
Promoting Liberian literature, Arts and Culture
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God,
w here w e met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk w ith the w ine of the
w orld, w e forget Thee;
Shadow ed beneath Thy hand,
May w e forev er stand,
True to our God,
True to our nativ e land
In Bondage
Claude McKay
Afternoon birds
I w ould be w andering in distant fields
Where man, and bird, and beast, liv es
leisurely,
And the old earth is kind, and ev er yields
Her goodly gifts to all her children free;
Where life is fairer, lighter, less demanding,
And boys and girls hav e time and space for
play
Before they come to years of
understanding-Somew here I w ould be singing, far aw ay.
For life is greater than the thousand w ars
Men w age for it in their insatiate lust,
And w ill remain like the eternal stars,
When all that shines to-day is drift and dust
But I am bound w ith you in your mean
grav es,
O black men, simple slav es of ruthless slaves.
Heritage
Poem Reaching For Something
Morning Poem #1
Wanda Phipps
floating gray w eb pages
step into a crow ded v acuum
clouds sw eating
there's a gauzy scrim
in front of my eyes
betw een me and
the rest of the w orld
Claude McKay
Quincy Troupe
Now the dead past seems v iv idly aliv e,
And in this shining moment I can trace,
Dow n through the v ista of the v anished
years,
Your faun-like form, your fond elusiv e face.
And suddenly some secret spring's released,
And unaw ares a riddle is rev ealed,
And I can read like large, black-lettered
print,
What seemed before a thing forever sealed.
w e w alk through a calligraphy of hats slicing
off foreheads
ace-deuce cocked, they slant, razor sharp,
clean through imagination, our
spirits knee-deep in w hat w e have forgotten
entrancing our bodies now to
dance, like enraptured w ater lilies
the rhythm in liquid strides of certain looks
eyeballs rippling through breezes
riffing choirs of trees, where a trillion sliv ers of
sunlight prance across
filigreeing leaves, a zillion v oices of bamboo
reeds, green w ith summer
saxophone bursts, w rap themselv es, like
transparent prisms of dew drops
around images, laced w ith pearls &
rhinestones, dreams
& perhaps it is through this decoding of
syllables that w e learn speech
that sonorous river of broken mirrors carrying
our dreams
I know the magic w ord, the graceful
thought,
The song that fills me in my lucid hours,
The spirit's w ine that thrills my body through,
And makes me music-drunk, are yours, all
yours.
I cannot praise, for you hav e passed from
praise,
I hav e no tinted thoughts to paint you true;
But I can feel and I can w rite the w ord;
The best of me is but the least of you.
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